


The Practical Applications of Magic in Procuring a Husband and Breaking Family Curses or The Five Year Courtship of Olivia Sanderson

by Dandybear



Category: The Haunting of Hill House (TV 2018)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, I stole this plot from Practical Magic, Magical Realism, References to the book, Some on the nose foreshadowing, Soulmates, The Adventures of Young Hugh and Olivia, Witch Olivia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-08-14 01:18:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16483319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dandybear/pseuds/Dandybear
Summary: "If I make up a husband who can’t exist then I’ll never get married.”Plagued by fear of the Widow's Curse, Olivia Sanderson swears whatever's wrong with her family ends with her. No husband. No children. She even invents an 'Impossible Husband' to keep herself in check.The problem with that though is that her Impossible Husband has other plans.





	1. Tadpoles and Baby Cranes

**Author's Note:**

> I've got a bunch of fic drafts for this fandom, this is just the story I like best at the moment. It'll probably be in two or three parts. 
> 
> Olivia gets the Sanderson surname from the book. There's gonna be quite a few literary allusions in this because like Olivia, I too am an insufferable nerd.
> 
> Stoner voice: what if... what if Steven got his... you know... Steven-ness from his mom?
> 
> Lemme know what you think.

Olivia Sanderson is thirteen years-old when her mother tells her that she’s a witch.

Which, is the wrong time to do so. It probably would have been best to tell her during her first big display of psychokinetic power. But, Mary didn’t know exactly if it was best to rock the boat when her twelve year-old daughter was coping with grief by making it rain stones.

So, at the time, she said that it was some neighbourhood kids playing a prank.

And, Olivia was scared and credulous enough to believe it. It made more sense. There had always been an unfriendliness. People in their town would cross the street if they saw the Sanderson women coming. Few playmates would choose to be near them at school, and those numbers would dwindle each passing year.

Olivia just grew up with the sense that she had done something wrong.

“Sanderson women… we’re special and other people are scared of that,” her mother says in that secretive way.

“There was one of us… it was a very long time ago, but she got so angry at her husband for something he did that she cursed our entire family,” her smile is tight, “Sanderson men don’t last very long.”

“That’s insane,” Olivia says at thirteen.

Her father died in a car crash. It happens.

It’s a coincidence, she tells herself.

She goes through the town records, following the branches of her own family tree and finding the corresponding dates on the paper.

_Arthur Reid was struck by an automobile at the age of 24._

_David Bennett, hit twice by lightning at the age of 30._

_Michael Beaumon, drowned at 20._

She goes back far enough to see her family listed as those suspected of witchcraft, some hung at the neck until dead.

Olivia dreams of walking in the woods and finding a tree full of women, all hanging like white sheets. She sees her mother, her grandmother, then herself, struggling against her bonds as more branches grow out of her.

She doesn’t scream when she awakens, she just sits up and stares at the wall until the sun creeps in through the window with its grey fingers.

“I’m never having kids,” she announces at the breakfast table.

“I’m never getting married and I’m never having kids,” she repeats.

It’s not that she believes in the curse, she tells herself.

She does believe in the power of belief, and she doesn’t want to subject another generation to the same social ostracization. Besides, there’s no one worth risking it for.

Still, after a roll in the hay with Robert Graves gets her locker defaced, Olivia learns that she’s going to need a reminder. Something binding.

So, she does what she swore not to.

She practices witchcraft.

“Are you drawing houses again?” Janet asks her when she finds Olivia hunched over her desk.

“No, I’m making my impossible husband,” Olivia says.

“Okay, Crazy,” Janet says, but she cranes her neck to look.

Olivia elbows her and they get into a scuffle over the notebook.

“Janet!”

“My future husband will be kind--duh. He will always see my best self. He will sing and play the guitar. I’ll know him by his eyes, which will be blue and glow in the dark, well that’s impossible.”

Olivia snatches it back, “That’s the point. If I make up a husband who can’t exist then I’ll never get married.”

Janet squints at her sister.

“Why not just never get married?” Janet sits on Olivia’s bed, kicking her feet.

“I don’t plan to, but this is how I’ll keep myself in check.”

“What are you gonna do with the paper?” Janet asks.

Olivia tears it to shreds and throws it out the window.

Janet blinks at her.

“That’s what they say to do,” Olivia shrugs.

It gives her a migraine that lasts two days. Nothing but explosions of colour and noise behind her eyes and the pounding of blood in her temples.

 

* * *

 

 

The impossible husband trick works. Olivia falls in love, of course, but not with men. Olivia Sanderson falls in love with words. She underlines passages of Shakespeare, Woolf, and Plath. She falls in love with the columns of the greek pantheon. She falls in love with Gothic spires that reach for the sky.

And, yes, she explores people like they are houses. She tries men who are untethered from any one location--mobile home men. She tries the old, rich New England men. Mansions, all of them. Too much space, not enough warmth, and blood hidden under some of the floorboards. She dares not stay too long.

She tries ranchers and condos, but none have a lasting appeal.

After all, none are her husband.

Olivia dreams of him sometimes. He’s a dark figure lurking in the woods of her subconscious.

“Liv, can you give me a hand with this?” he’ll say as he hangs Christmas decorations on her family tree.

She flees to Europe and Asia, to find some perspective. To find some answers. Not to find herself though, she knows where she is. Olivia is where she’s always been, hidden away from the world in a cottage covered in roses.

In Thailand she sees temples covered in monkeys. In Istanbul she sees what remains of Constantinople. In Portugal, she nearly faints from the migraine she gets on entry to Capela dos Ossos. In the shadow of the church, she sips water and watches five hundred years of human bones walk past the backs of her eyes.

“My mother says you have a devil’s mark,” a boy says to her in accented English.

Olivia winces and touches her chin involuntarily. The little old Portuguese woman is looking at her with open hostility.

The deeper into Europe she travels the more superstition follows her and the worse the headaches get.

On the flight back to the United States, she dreams of her impossible husband. He’s clearer now, she can tell the shape of his nose and brow.

“Liv, you okay? You look like you’re a million miles away,” he says with soft affection.

“Sorry, Honey, I was,” she says.

 

* * *

 

 

Olivia lives on Janet’s couch for the two months of work it takes to rebuild some of her savings. Architecture jobs don’t come easily on account of her being a twenty-something spinster with no professional connections outside of a glowing recommendation from her professor. She packs groceries until she gets a call from a firm in Boulder, Colorado. Long distance. Katie, the only other woman in her class, heard she was back stateside and misses her clean lines.

Olivia buys a ticket and takes nothing but clothes and a few books.

“Be careful,” Janet says, hugging her.

“I always am,” Olivia lies.

 

* * *

 

 

She’s designing a strata complex. Little houses all slotted together with access to green space and a pool. They have a design meeting for it on the land that’s been scraped to raw dirt and mud by backhoes in preparation for progress. Olivia wears a suit, a hard hat, and a ring on her left hand to avoid any unwanted attention.

There’s only one other woman on the site, Marcia, the receptionist with horn-rimmed glasses and a judgmental eye who tells her to wait for the supervisor to arrive.

Too many hens in the cockhouse, Olivia supposes.

The Supervisor, a man named Brody with the nose of an alcoholic, leads her and a fleet of investors across a barren field.

There’s a man standing at the opposite end, boots slipping on the edge of the construction ditch. His high vis vest is stark against a leather jacket. Olivia feels like a rabbit’s run over her grave.

“Catching tadpoles, Crain?” Brody yells.

“Our Foreman. Best tradesman I’ve ever met, but a little… you know,” he explains to the investors.

Crain doesn’t run, he moves with purpose and arrives just the same.

“Thought I saw some kids playing in the ditch. Wanted to run them off before they got hurt,” he explains.

His eyes travel from Brody, to the investors, to Olivia and a little wrinkle appears between his brows.

Olivia almost bursts out laughing.

She almosts says, _“You motherfucker.”_

But, she holds her tongue, literally, between her teeth as she inspects the structure that is Hugh Crain.

Of all the men (and women) Olivia’s inspected, Hugh Crain looks the most like a warm home. A well put together man. His frame holds sturdy. Angles meet neatly. No walls block the light coming from his eyes. Those eyes. They’re the standout on an otherwise average man. It’s like Hugh was finished and ready to be rolled out when the last review decided it wanted to change that one last detail. They look like they’ve been painted over another colour. Too vivid. Too vibrant. They can’t be real. But they regard her.

His fingers are rough, but his palm is smooth and the look he gives her from beneath his lashes says enough.

No one else notices them. Hugh even keeps his distance, leading the pack and explaining the lay of the land with quick gestures. Olivia’s not really listening, she’s in a panic. Outside her cottage made of thorns stands Hugh Crain holding a pair of garden shears and a bouquet of sunflowers.

Olivia is not required to be on-site very often. She does, however, volunteer any time something needs to be delivered there. Katie catches on and smiles into her cup of coffee.

“What’s his name?” she asks.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Olivia says.

“Bring him over for dinner then, Aaron could use some more friends who aren’t in accounting,” Katie says.

“It’s not. We aren’t dating. We barely even talk, I just like looking at him,” Olivia admits.

Katie sets her pencil down, “You must really like him to be this shy. I’ve never seen you afraid to go after a man before.”

Olivia’s smile is brittle and she nods.

Hugh Crain stays late, either working, or cleaning the job site. She finds him sitting on an overturned crate reading a book. He flinches, startled, and smiles.

“Mrs. Sanderson,” he takes off his hard hat.

“Mr. Crain, have you eaten yet?” she asks.

She kind of loves seeing surprise open up his face. (It’s a good face. The kind of face a woman could grow old waking up to.)

She keeps catching him shooting her curious glances from behind his menu. Olivia smiles, ignoring it while she pumps quarters into the jukebox and settles on some Tammi Terrell, and some Bill Withers.

“You’re not wearing your wedding ring,” Hugh says when she sits down.

Olivia takes a sip of water, “I’m not married.”

He chews on that for a minute.

“I suppose it probably makes work easier,” he says.

“That I have more safety if I pretend to be someone’s property?” Olivia shrugs, “My imaginary husband treats me well.”

“What would your imaginary husband think about you inviting me out for dinner?” Hugh asks, looking somewhere between flirtatious and nervous.

Olivia doesn’t really know how to answer that, all that comes to mind is, “He’d want the best for me.”

Hugh Crain straightens in his seat, “Guess I’ll have to be the best then.”

She drops him off back at his truck and he kisses her cheek, “Thank you for dinner, Ms. Sanderson.”

“Good night, Mr. Crain,” she says.

That night, Olivia walks through the forest of her ancestors and finds Hugh Crain on a ladder propped against her family tree. He’s taking something down, holding it with a precious kind of delicacy.

His voice is quiet, reverent even as he holds out a nest.

“Liv, look at what we made,” he says with a laugh.

Five chicks. Fluffy and awkward. Baby cranes look up at her and begin to peep. She adores them instantly.

“Careful, they’re fragile,” Hugh says, transferring the nest to her hands.

Olivia fumbles and drops it. Five baby cranes crushed and dead at her feet.

She awakens to her own screaming.

“I’m never getting married and I’m never having children,” she whispers.


	2. Comfort Tastes of Apple Cider and Sunflowers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Olivia and Hugh date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am presently breaking all of my fingers in an attempt to write prose as beautiful as Ms. Jackson's. WRITING IS HARD.
> 
> Thanks to thedevilstinger for commenting. It really motivates me to update and I love hearing feedback.
> 
> TW for this chapter: mentions of physical abuse.

Olivia doesn’t visit the job site again. It doesn’t seem to do much good, because Hugh Crain arrives at her office with a bouquet of sunflowers.

“I’m here to deliver these for Olivia Sanderson,” she hears him saying from her office.

“I’ll just go and get her. And your name is?” Katie says.

“Uh, it’s Crain, Hugh Crain,” he says.

Olivia breaks into a fast walk.

“Hugh, do you like football?” Katie’s asking him.

Olivia arrives at the front desk and shoots Katie a look. Katie smiles widely. Hugh holds the flowers out like a peace offering, sheepish at the thought of it now.

“Hi,” he says.

She really wants to be cold and aloof, but he’s so cute.

“Hi,” she mirrors.

“I don’t know if you do Halloween celebrations or anything but they do a hayride just outside of town and it’s… nice, or so I’ve heard. Popcorn and apple cider and stuff,” he says.

“She’d love to go,” Katie supplies.

Olivia flips her off when Hugh has his head turned.

“Okay, great,” Hugh laughs and actually walks out then right back in.

“I don’t have your phone number,” he says.

Olivia writes it on the back of a business card and hands it to him, biting her lip.

“May I?” Hugh reaches for the pen.

“Oh! Yes,” she hands it over.

Hugh grabs the hand holding it and pushes up the sleeve of her blouse to expose forearm. Olivia swallows hard and tries to keep her mind blank as the pen dances across her skin.

Hugh caps it and sets it on the desk, “I’ve gotta go.”

“Okay,” she says, hoping she doesn’t look as flushed as she feels.

“Sunday night?” he asks.

“Sunday’s good,” her voice is all low and she clears her throat.

Hugh’s been gone for a few seconds and Olivia takes a deep breath before turning to look at Katie.

Katie is beaming.

“Don’t--”

“You love him!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Olivia scoffs, “I barely know him.”

“So this is what Olivia Sanderson looks like when she’s in love. About time. He’s a cutie too.”

Katie laughs even harder at the possessive flash in Olivia’s eyes.

 

* * *

 

The night is cold, but Hugh Crain’s arm is warm. She curls herself around him and catches their reflection in the glass window of a farmhouse. They fit together. She likes the weight of his arm linked with hers and the smell of his aftershave. It’s a good image. The two of them. It feels right. It feels normal.

Olivia’s not used to feeling normal. Is it worth it? Leading this man to his untimely death just for a taste of the life she was deprived of?

Is Hugh’s life really worth risking? To see if her magic is stronger than the late Alse Young’s?

It’s the last thing she wrote on her list, right after: _‘works with his hands’_ . _‘Safe from my family curse’_.

“Did you know that they don’t celebrate Halloween in Europe?” Hugh asks, “Chased all of the pagans out of the continent like snakes, they fled here instead.”

There’s something funny about his tone and the way his jaw tightens.

“Do you like Halloween, Hugh?” she asks.

“It’s my favourite,” he says.

“Mine too,” she says.

They sit thigh to thigh with warm cider between their knees as the cold air rushes by. Kids in plastic masks jump out at the wagon they’re in, causing some of the younger riders to shriek. Olivia leans closer to Hugh, feeling more content than she can remember feeling in a long time.

One of the teenagers in skeleton costume sees them and freezes mid-scare. There’s genuine fear on his face. Olivia frowns and looks up at Hugh for clarification. He looks equally confused, glance at her with glowing eyes.

It’s called tapetum lucidum. She remembers it from the big biology books Daddy kept in his study. A layer of reflective film at the back of an eye. Those little yellow flashes along the road at night when a car illuminates a nocturnal animal. Olivia once woke to eyes like that outside her window and thought it a ghoul. It squeaked and waddled away--only a fat raccoon.

Hugh is not a fat raccoon, and he’s much too handsome to be a ghoul.

“Hope that kid’s okay,” he says at the end of the ride.

“Yeah,” Olivia is stuck in a stare, feeling the fingers of a migraine pulling at her.

“You okay, Liv?” he asks, his face coming into view.

She takes his offered hand and hops out of the wagon, in the same motion she pulls him down for a kiss.

Like his arm around her waist, his mouth is firm and unyielding. Hugh warms her with his mouth, tongue shooting electricity through her body like a live wire. The effect settles somewhere in her stomach and has her clenching her thighs, lashes lowered. He kisses her once more, missing her lips and getting the beauty mark on her chin.

“Corn maze?” he suggests, clearing his throat.

Her brain’s still a little fuzzy so she just nods.

Led by the hand, Olivia links their fingers into a knot, trapping him. Hugh squeezes back and she can see the shine of his eyes and smile. Even if she doesn’t keep him. Even if she runs before the curse can take him too, she wants to remember this. Olivia paints the moment onto the backs of her eyelids. The lights of the ferris wheel. Children running by in costume. The cool air. Laughter. The warm pulse of Hugh’s hand against hers.

Corn mazes are a dreamy, romantic part of Americana. They line old highways and the edges of small towns with borders of green, then yellow. This corn maze is at the end of its life. All of the stalks are a sickly grey--almost black with mold crawling in a spiderweb pattern up the leaves. The corn’s been stripped and husked. All that’s left are skeletons.

“I’m regretting my choice of footwear,” Olivia admits, looking between her flats and the muddy path.

“I can carry you over the bigger puddles,” Hugh offers.

Olivia’s response is on the tip of her tongue, but Hugh jogs off all of a sudden.

“Hugh!” she gives chase and hisses a curse at the mud.

She finds him a few rows in staring at a wall of corn.

“Hugh, what the hell?” Olivia says, earning her a glare from a mother.

It takes her tugging on Hugh’s sleeve to get his attention.

“What? Oh. Liv! I’m sorry. I thought I saw….”

“You scared me just taking off like that!”

“Sorry, thought I saw… musta just been someone’s kids running around,” he rubs his eyes.

It would be just like Olivia to find solace in another lost soul seeing spectres. It would also be just like Olivia to project this vision onto Hugh, only to find herself attached to an ill man. Magic or sickness? Says the nagging voice in her head.

“Come on, let’s get lost,” Hugh fakes a smile.

The moment hangs over the rest of the evening. The excitement’s drifted more into trepidation. Not just from Olivia. Hugh seems unsure and anxious.

They’re sitting in the parking lot with the cab light on. Hugh rubs his eyes again.

“I’m sorry that I ruined our night. Some kid… it’s weird, some kid must’ve been dressed just like my brother, Theo. But, you know how Halloween is. We’re all hoping to see a ghost.” he says.

He doesn’t play tough or brush it off. Just honesty.

Olivia reaches for his hand, currently white knuckling the stationary steering wheel, and kisses his fingers.

“Hugh, take me home,” she says.

“Sure, sure,” he turns the ignition.

Olivia drops her hand to his thigh, “Hugh,” she breathes.

He pauses, turning to look at her with wide disbelief. Olivia squeezes twice. Sweat beads on his brow during the drive, looking to her at every stop light. She feels that fire from earlier stoking in her belly. Willpower is what prevents her from demanding that he stop. Just stop at the side of the road and keep the light off and his foot away from the gas. For him to move, giving her enough space to climb atop him. Leave the lights off as cars drive by, ignoring the foggy windows and rocking cab.

But, Olivia waits instead. The truck pulls into a nondescript bungalow. Kind of like Hugh, but colder and not as well put together.  

Hugh lives like a Spartan with Athenian tastes. His home is almost as sparsely decorated as hers. Books and a set of green chairs are the only comfort she can see on entry. He locks the door behind them, hangs up his keys, then accepts the way she crashes into him.

Somehow they stumble into the bedroom. She mounts his lap searching for that hard heat she tasted earlier. Curiosity has built itself into excitement. She can see the glow of his eyes in the darkness of the room. He reaches behind himself for the lamp, pausing in their kissing to really look at her. She feels bare. Seen. Alight. She’s like a candle burning at both ends and Hugh is the lighter. Her mouth searches for him. She tries his lips, his jaw, his ears, and makes it down to his neck, hands on his buckle when he stops her.

“Liv, hold on,” he gasps.

She stops kissing him, trying not to pout as she obeys.

“Is this okay?” she asks.

Her roaming hands stop and she sees her handy work. Hugh’s shirt is unbuttoned, exposing the grey undershirt beneath. His chest is heaving and there’s a bulge in his jeans that she can feel against her. She bites her lip, refraining grinding down on it.

Hugh pants against her head, rolling his jaw in internal conflict. She watches him have a conversation with himself before looking back at her. He strokes her cheek and searches her eyes for something.

He doesn’t find it, because he sighs through his nose and moves his hands to a respectful spot on her waist.

“Where are you right now?” he asks.

Olivia snorts, “On your lap, Mr. Crain. I thought that’d be self-explanatory.”

Hugh flops against the mattress, “No, I mean right here,” he points to her heart and then her head.

Olivia’s face falls. He’s right. She may have Hugh Crain physically between her legs, but emotionally, he’s knocking at the door of her cottage and she’s staring at him through the window. Her hand white knuckles the doorknob to keep it closed. To keep him and the rest of the world out.  

She rolls off him and onto the sheets, resting her head against his arm.

“Would you like to stay the night anyway?” he asks.

Olivia stays quiet while she thinks.

Hugh rolls up onto his elbow to look down at her, “I can drop you off at your house tonight or tomorrow morning before work.”

“My hours are flexible,” is her non answer.

It makes Hugh smile. He kisses the corner of her mouth, “I’ll get you something to wear as pajamas.”

“Oh, that’s just not fair,” Olivia says as Hugh’s shirt hits her in the face.

She sits up and watches him strip. He doesn’t leave the room, doesn’t shy away from her gaze, just pulls his shirt over his head and drops his jeans on the floor.

It’s really not fair because Hugh’s got a body like Cary Grant and is still hard in his boxers.

But, then he turns around and Olivia gasps.

“Oh, that. Yeah, my old man delivered his sermons with a belt,” Hugh says casually.

Olivia swallows hard, reaching for him with gentle fingers.

Hugh dresses in starched pajamas because of course he does. He’s a proper man after all.

He sits down and she sets about unbuttoning it so she can stroke his bare back. He sighs into her hair.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” he says unhelpfully.

Olivia shakes her head against his chest, then kisses the spot above his heart.

“I’ll tell you about it once we’re in bed,” he says.

Taking the hint, Olivia gets up and sheds her dress, keeping eye contact as she does. Hugh audibly gulps.

“Can I use your toothbrush?” she asks, disappearing down the hall.

“Go for it,” he yells after her.

The lights are off when she gets back, so she follows his glowing eyes back to bed. Left side, closest to the door. Hugh pulls her closer. Her head finds its way back into the crook of his neck and her hand migrates down to his navel. She won’t go any further, but she hopes it’s tempting.

“My little brother Theo got hit by a train when I was seven,” Hugh says like he’s talking about the weather, “I was supposed to be watching him, but I had found this old bike that was growing out of a tree and… well… it doesn’t matter, he was there and then he was… there was so much blood,” Hugh says.

It’s not at all what she expected, but she keeps listening.

“My dad didn’t just blame me. He said that it happened because I was touched by the devil--on account of the-” Hugh points to his eyes.

“Oh my god,” Olivia whispers.

“And, if he didn’t have a mean right hook before then, he sure knew how to throw a fun exorcism,” Hugh adds.

She sits up, searching for any hint of irony.

“That’s insane,” she whispers.

“Yeah, well, he’s always been--Other members of the church found me tied to the bed and crying. Next thing I knew I was on a plane to New York to live with my sister from my dad’s first marriage. He disowned her on account of, uh, lifestyle choices,” he finishes.

“Hugh, that’s awful,” Olivia whispers.

He scratches his neck, overly casual, “Best thing to happen really. Sophia’s always been good to me. Cried when I made Life Scout.”

“What’s a Life Scout?” Olivia asks.

“It’s the rank before Eagle Scout,” he says like that means anything to her.

Olivia nods, flopping onto her back again.

“When I was twelve I made it rain rocks on my house,” she says.

“What kind of rocks?” Hugh asks.

“Little black stones. Perfect size for skipping,” she says.

Hugh hums.

“My ancestors were starring figures in the Salem Witch Trials,” she adds.

Hugh rolls onto his side to regard her and chuckles, “What a pair we make, huh?”

Olivia chuckles and nods.

She’s unlocking that door and holding it open to accept the bouquet of sunflowers.

Olivia drifts off to sleep holding Hugh’s hand.

She’s in a field of fresh corn and feeling like something’s missing.

“Hugh?” she calls out.

There’s a flash of blue between stalks that Olivia follows. She hears the giggling of children and steps into one row to see Hugh chasing a little boy.

 _Hurry, or they’ll leave you behind_. A little voice says.

Olivia gives chase and sees not just the little boy, but two little girls shoving at each other as they weave between stalks.

She sees them then. Hugh holding the boy aloft, girls holding his free hand, and a pair of blonde twins clinging to his legs. Olivia moves to walk towards them but can’t. She looks down to see one of the ghouls from the hayride clinging to her legs and hissing.

That’s when she hears the train. Hugh and the kids are standing on the tracks calling out to her, but not moving. Olivia struggles against the arms holding her in place.

She wakes up just before she sees her family hit by a train. Olivia flails into wakefulness. The arm slung across her waist for comfort and protection feels hot and restrictive. He’s coiled around her like a serpent. Every touch against her bare skin feels burning—an explosion of repulsive little spiders. She finds solace clinging to the headboard and panting. The surroundings are alien, even more so in the grey half-light of dawn.

Hugh’s looking at her with the patience and concern one would give a wounded animal.

“You okay?” he asks.

Olivia strokes her arms, nodding, but not meaning it, “Bad dreams.”

“What about?” he reaches for her.

She flinches, then leans into his palm. Her heartbeat is back to normal and when she goes to retrace the steps of the dream, she finds… nothing.

“I can’t recall,” she says.

“Don’t let it linger then,” he kisses her cheek.

She tips her head to kiss his mouth before he can retreat.

“I have morning breath,” he says.

She rolls her eyes and kisses him again.

“Wanna shower then?” he asks.

 

* * *

 

“Mr. Crain is sweet on you,” Marcia says like she’s sharing a secret and not fishing for gossip.

Olivia stretches her lips and raises her eyebrows in a non-smile.

Marcia leans forward, “Not that he’d ever do anything improper about it. He is a gentleman.”

That does make Olivia smile. Hugh is a gentleman and Marcia doesn’t know anything about their relationship because Hugh did Olivia good and improper against her front door last night. Her back still stings from where the wood dug in, and she’s wearing leggings to combat the chafe his stubble gave the inside of her thighs.

“Have a good day, Mrs. Poe,” Olivia exits the trailer.

She almost bowls Hugh over on her way out and schools her expression into polite friendliness.

“Afternoon, Mr. Crain,” she says.

 _Hello, my love._ She thinks.

“Ms. Sanderson,” he tips his hat.

 _Hi Honey._ She hears.

They pass like ships, as if they hadn’t spent the morning wrapped around each other.

The days are short and cold now, but Hugh’s house has an old porcelain and cast iron tub big enough for two. She leans forward to let him get in behind her, setting her book on the little shelf to avoid splashes.

“Your hot water bill must be insane,” she says.

Hugh grunts, slipping between her and enamel, “It’s fine. Well worth it.”

She falls back against his chest, ear to the strong beat of his heart.

 _I had another dream that you died,_ she wants to tell him.

“It’s too bad we can’t take this tub over to your place,” he says, “I lose more money on heating cause the insulation job here was shit.”

Olivia hums, content to just listen to his voice and enjoy the warmth of the water.

“You know, I’m not set on Boulder,” he says.

That gets her attention. When she opens her eyes Hugh is looking down at her, wrinkle between his brows.

“Yeah, the job’s fine, but I’ve been getting itchy feet lately,” he says.

“I have an oatmeal scrub for that,” she says.

He squishes her nose and she wrinkles it, “You know what I mean.”

She sighs and reaches back to squeeze his shoulders.

“Electricians have already done the wiring, it’s just interior finishing and the concrete pour for the exterior and we’re done. Then we can be like leaves on the wind,” he says.

There’s an implication there. That if Hugh goes then Olivia is coming with him. She dislikes that implication the same way she dislikes labeling what they’re doing as a relationship. Katie referring to Hugh as _‘Olivia’s boyfriend’_ made her want to drive all the way back to Massachusetts and change her name.

And it shouldn’t, because Olivia has been internally referring to Hugh as her husband for awhile.

“What are you thinking?” she asks.

Hugh kisses her shoulder, “Maybe somewhere warm. We’re already West so we could do Nevada or California.”

“I could design strips of casino and parking lot,” she says.

“Both states have booming real estate markets,” he says.

She tilts her neck back to look at him, “How long have you been planning this?”

“Little bit before we met. I don’t like to stay anywhere for long… well, I think it’s more like I’ve been looking for home a long time and haven’t found it yet,” he says.

“What does home look like?” Olivia asks, reaching for her book.

Hugh mulls it over.

“A cosy little cottage in the woods. Big garden for a couple kids to play in,” he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The book version of Hugh Crain was a frightening religious fanatic. I just transplanted that character and turned him into Hugh's dad. 
> 
> Katie and Marcia are of my own invention. The Haunting of Hill House is very much a book about the way women relate to each other in the presence of men. I didn't live through the 50's and 60's, but they were very different times. I didn't want to make all female interactions Olivia has out to be hostile, so Katie balances things because GIRLS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN FRIENDS WITH EACH OTHER.


	3. The Beetle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The curse makes itself known.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Handy of THoHH to have a beetle much like the curse in Practical Magic.
> 
> Something I meant to bring up in the last chapter. Hugh Crain is such an anomaly for me, because how many baby boomer men are that sensitive and well-adjusted? So, the best explanation I could come up with is that he was raised by intellectual lesbians. 
> 
> Hugh's description of 'The Kite and The Line' (creature of the air/creature of the earth) sounds like an Aquarius/Capricorn marriage. Which makes a lot of sense because Olivia is like... the most Aquarian Aquarius to ever exist. I was looking at Henry Thomas and Carla Gugino and found out they have only a few days age difference, so that inspired me. 
> 
> Nautical themed dreams inspired by Little Talks.

It takes them until January to find new jobs and a house in Nevada. They move in on Hugh’s birthday and eat bakery cake while sitting on their new kitchen counter.

“What do you want for your birthday?” he asks her after testing the harmonica she got him.

(Fate, it would have, put her on Earth twelve days after him. Just long enough to change constellations. To shift from Earth to Air.)

“A big hat. The kind that provides shade for my whole body, so I won’t need a parasol for all this sun,” she says.

“A frilly hat and parasol for the lady,” he says, adding a harmonica riff.

“Shall I be the wide eyed damsel rescued by my handsome cowboy?” she asks, pawing at his chest.

Hugh laughs, “More like the wicked lady of the house and I, your long suffering stable hand.”

“You think me wicked, Mr. Crain?” she plays with his collar. 

“I know you wicked, and bewitching, Ms. Sanderson,” Hugh pulls her onto his lap. 

The counter protests their combined weight and they both hop off laughing. 

“We’ll have to christen other parts of the house instead,” he says. 

“These counter tops are hideous,” she sighs. 

She hoped that maybe the desert air would do away with the migraines. Sometimes it’s environmental. The part of her holding out for a scientific explanation and cure wants it to be environmental. And, the higher pressure and warmer air feels good.

But, the minute she walks onto their new job site, a massive migraine knocks her on her ass. She stumbles outside to throw up. Hugh finds her leaning against the truck and rubs slow circles into her back.

“That one looked pretty intense,” he says.

She nods against the truck, afraid to open her mouth.

“What did you see?” he asks.

(Because Hugh knows now. Stories about things that they’ve seen or done have become topics for idle pillow talk. Being with Hugh has Olivia spilling all of her secrets into the air above their bed, hands tangled with his.)

What does come out is a strangled sob.

What did she see?

_ Drugs, guns, and money. And girls. Girls dancing. Girls held at gunpoint. Men’s bodies stuffed into trunks and then left out to have their bones picked clean. _

“We’re in Vegas, Baby,” she says.

 

* * *

 

“I think Tommy’s in bed with the mob,” Hugh says, adjusting his tie.

Olivia, sitting cross-legged on their bed and waiting for him to finish, snorts.

“Ya think?” she says.

Hugh rubs pomade into his hair, “You know I like to try and see the best in people.”

“And you know I don’t like it when you spend time with him.”

The house they’re in is still hideous. The few warm touches they’ve added helps a little, but it’s like renovating a sinking ship. There’s a mustard coloured carpet and burnt orange drapes. And, the tub’s not as good as in one in Boulder. It’s fine. They won’t be here for long.

Staying anywhere too long feels dangerous. They’re vagabonds, moving across the country like a pair of interlocked tumbleweeds. Hugh looks forward, towards home, wherever that may be. Olivia looks backward, one eye open for the curse. That unholy little green beetle she saw stuck to her father’s windshield the day of the accident.

So, she fills her bag with painkillers and goes with Hugh to Tommy the investor’s big Vegas party.

“Liv, I don’t think this is really our scene,” Hugh says mildly as a topless waitress walks past.

Olivia Sanderson is no square. She went to Woodstock. She stayed up talking philosophy and smoking hashish while visiting Tehran. She’s been to Parisian cabarets. She’s read the Iliad in its original Greek text!

Olivia makes a noise and nods dumbly. 

It’s a den of debauchery and setting off all her alarm bells. 

“Just a drink and hello then we duck back out?” she offers. 

Hugh nods hard. 

Tommy appears with a woman on his arm. Feeling underdressed in their company, Olivia avoids eye contact. Instead she traces the wings of the kitschy faux-Egyptian scarab wrapped around the woman’s neck. It’s been painted a pale green that makes Olivia’s throat go dry.

“Glad you and the Missus could make it, drink? Cigar? Water polo? I think there’s a game going on in the pool,” Tommy’s saying.

He’s trying to lead Hugh away. Olivia holds his hand tight, pulling him back like a rubber band. She aims her best smile at Tommy and the woman as she brings Hugh’s ear close.

“Honey, we need to get out of here right now.”

Hugh searches her features, then nods, “Sorry, Tom, Liv just remembered that we forgot to leave out food for the cat.”

It’s a thin excuse, but it gives them enough space to push through throngs of partygoers. Once in the driveway, Olivia breaks into a jog.

“Liv, wait up!” Hugh says.

“Get in the car,” she says, already climbing into the driver seat.

“Olivia, what is up with you?” he asks.

She doesn’t want to wait for him to get his seatbelt on, but she’s not risking it.

They’re barely a house away when they start hearing gunfire. Hugh turns around in his seat, clinging to the leather with white knuckles.

“Liv, we need to get the police,” he says.

“Do you really trust the police here?” she fires back.

( _ In the future, _ Olivia thinks, _ much much later in my long life, I will tell my children about the time their parents were witnesses to a crime. “Your father and I,” I will start, sitting in my comfortable rocking chair with a cat to warm my lap, “Your dad and I, when we were young, worked for the wrong kind of man--” _ )

“Liv! Payphone,” Hugh slaps the dashboard.

“We’ll call the FBI once we hit California,” she insists.

Once they cross the state line. Right into federal waters. Olivia drives all night, stopping at the first gas station they see open this close to sunrise.

She sits on the cab of the truck and watches light bleed into day.

“Liv, are you pregnant?” Hugh asks around a cigarette.

“What?” she does a double take.

“I dunno,” he scuffs the dirt, “I thought that maybe… you don’t usually throw up with your migraines. I thought maybe we might be… nevermind.”

He rubs a hand over his face. She stays quiet, accepting the offered cigarette.

“I can’t have children,” she says lowly.

Hugh looks stricken. He reaches for her hand, “Liv, I’m so sorry.”

_ Leave me.  _ She thinks.  _ Let this be the root of what rots us. I cannot give you a legacy, Hugh Crain. I will die before I curse those children. _

And Hugh, her gentle, understanding, impossible Hugh. He kisses her hand with tears in his eyes.

“We’ll make houses instead,” he says.

She nods and gathers him up in her arms. He is breathing. He is alive.

* * *

 

 

The storm stirs the sea into swirls of silt and water. It froths against the wood of their creaking boat. It’s the crack of thunder that has her running at an angle from her office to the deck.

“Theodora! What do you see?” she shouts up at the crow’s nest.

Sharp eyed, her lookout calls back, “Looks like hail Mum!”

Olivia curses. 

“We need to bring in the sails, batten down the hatches!” she shouts.

Her crew comes alive, trying to get the ship storm ready before the rain starts to freeze.

“Liv! Come inside! We can just weather the storm where it’s safe,” her dashing First Mate says.

“If we hide then this storm could tear my ship to pieces,” she taps his chest, “Strap down everything below deck. I’ll keep us from capsizing.”

“Captain! You hate storms!” he calls after her.

Olivia turns on heel and shoots him one last look before jogging up the steps to the helm.

“How’s she looking, Shirl?” Olivia asks her helmsman.

Shirley’s hands are steady on the wheel, despite the cold, “Staying the course.”

“Good Girl, you can go in, I’ll take it from here,” Olivia rubs her arm.

“I’m not leaving you,” Shirley says.

“It’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

Shirley shivers as she’s hit by a wall of cold water, “You should get out,” she says.

“I can’t.”

“Liv, the water’s freezing,” Hugh says.

She blinks herself awake, “Shit, how long have I been in here?”

The bath’s long since chilled, her legs are cramped against the taps, book dangling from her limp fingers.

“Jesus, you’re freezing,” Hugh’s brow furrows in worry.

He reaches into the water, his hands making a warm barrier between her clammy skin and the chilled fiberglass tub. She needs him to help her up. Once she’s standing, Hugh grabs a towel and stretches it from hand to hand and across his torso like a sail.

She steps out of the tub and into his arms. He wraps her in terrycloth.

“Warm me up,” she breathes into his neck.

Hugh’s eyes darken and he carries her bridal style to their bed. His mouth and hands are hot, burning life back into her hips, her thighs, her stomach.

She tangles her fingers in his hair and sighs low in her chest.

Hugh kisses her all over, something fierce and animal in him boiling over to warm her up. She could be drowning in him and still not be close enough. She demands more. More love. More attention. More pressure. He gives it to her every time.

 

* * *

 

Olivia comes home to find her sister camped out on the front stoop of her San Francisco apartment.

Her lips are pursed in Mary Sanderson’s patented look of displeasure. She shoves past Olivia and stands in the hall, hands on her hips. 

“Where is he?” she asks. 

Olivia fumbles on her excuse. 

“Livia!” Janet slaps the wall. 

“I messed up,” she admits. 

“This isn’t a fucking window, Olivia! It’s a human life!”

“How did you even find me?” Olivia changes the subject. 

Janet huffs a few times, taking something out of her purse. She unfolds the map flat out on the table. 

“Yes?” Olivia frowns. 

“Let me finish,” Janet tuts. 

She removes her brooch and pricks the tip of her index finger. Olivia sucks her teeth as she watches a drop of blood land on the map. The wax keeps it from soaking through. Instead, the drop rolls back and forth, making a line from Salem to San Francisco. 

Olivia knows her eyes look huge as she stares in shock. She wets her lips, but is unable to speak. 

Janet wipes the blood off with a handkerchief from her bag. 

“You missed a few lessons from Mom when you left,” she says evenly.

Hugh arrives with a gust of wind that knocks the door into the wall, causing both Sanderson sisters to jump.

He’s Paul Bunyan handsome in his red plaid and trimmed beard, “Honey, have you ever thought of being an Imagineer?” he announces.

The pile of letters is obscuring his view, but the unsteady silence he’s met with is enough indication of disturbance.

Janet takes one look at Hugh Crain’s eyes and rubs her temples, “Jesus fucking Christ, Olivia.”

 

* * *

 

If Janet can follow her bloodline like a river on a map then so can a curse. Olivia feels it during dinner, the way its grabbing hands claw at the windows and doors while Hugh cracks open another beer.

“Wind’s going nuts out there,” he says, watching the power flicker.

Olivia makes a noise like a chuckle. Janet gives her a meaningful glance.

“So, where’s your family from, Hugh?” she asks.

“Near Glasgow originally, but I grew up in New York,” he says.

“Sleepy Hollow?” Janet asks.

Hugh smiles with his mouth but not his eyes. Olivia is stirring her pasta in circles, ignoring the shapes forming at the bottom of the dish.

The power goes out of course.

“Damn, should probably bring in the laundry,” Hugh stands up.

He disappears through the back door and Janet pokes Olivia’s arm.

“He seems nice.”

_ Too nice to die so young.  _ Goes unsaid.

“Janet, I swear, I didn’t mean to. Don’t tell Mom,” Olivia pleads like they’re sixteen and twelve again and she’s just crashed the family car into a mailbox. 

Janet opens her mouth to speak, but there’s a whipping of wind at the windows and a clatter followed by a yell from Hugh.

Olivia’s blood runs cold. The air pressure of the back door won’t let her open it and she sees herself banging on the locks of her cottage as she watches Hugh dragged off by wolves. By things in the dark that tear and have teeth.

Janet helps her with the knob and in a lull, the door swings open. She finds Hugh on the grass, leaning up on his forearms, and drops to his side. She needs to see where the damage is.

Blood pours down his face, almost staining those eyes. He’s struggling over his words.

_ Please no, he’s not my husband, he’s not yet. You can’t have him _ . Her hands get tacky with his blood.

“Honey, honey, talk to me,” she says.

Hugh grabs her hand, “Just a scratch. The line snapped and the wind hit me with it. The forehead’s got a lot of blood, that’s all,” then he smiles comfortingly. Just a scratch.

Olivia kisses him, not caring about getting some of his blood in her mouth.

Janet shows Olivia the green beetle. Its body split in two from where the laundry line hit it. 

“That’s some powerful magic,” she whispers. 


	4. Blood Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Olivia marries Hugh in all ways except actually marrying him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something that not a lot of people noticed is that Shirley got the sleep talking from Hugh. The picnic scene is from the novel.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has commented so far, I really appreciate your support and interest.

Hugh talks in his sleep. Sometimes his mumbles are half-thoughts, fragments of dreams, pieces of wisdom pouring out of his mouth like an unsealed jar.

Other times, Hugh speaks prophecies. Fortunes. The kind of secrets soothsayers are paid to share.

“It sank into the sea,” he says.

“What did, Honey?” she asks him, stroking his hair.

“The house,” he says.

“Well, I hope everyone got out in time.”

He frowns in his sleep, “Liv, where are you?”

“I’m right here,” she kisses his hand.

“Then where am I?” he asks.

“I don’t know, Hugh, where are you?” she asks.

“I’m on a path… it’s so dark that I can barely see anything in front of me. All I know is that what’s behind me is horrible and what’s ahead of me has to be better,” he says.

Olivia puts her book down on the stack of books she’s been using as a bedside table and turns to him, concern etching her features.

“I have no shoes on, but the ground doesn’t hurt. I’m looking for a cottage with a red roof and a red door… there’s a princess waiting for me there, but she doesn’t want to be found. I can only ever see her out of the corner of my eye,” he says.

Olivia sighs.

“I see something ahead… it’s warm and bright. A picnic. My sister had a sweater exactly that colour,” then he sucks in a breath and all of the veins in his head and neck stick out. He struggles against the bed, making choked, animalistic noises.

Olivia shakes him, terrified that somewhere in his thrashing or choking that his heart will give up and he’ll just stop.

“Hugh! Hugh! Wake up!”

His eyes snap open, bloodshot and wild. Olivia cradles his jaw, dotting his face in comforting kisses. He clings to her like a life raft, still shuddering.

“Honey, what happened? What did you see?” she asks, kissing the pink scar from the laundry line.

“Something I wasn’t supposed to,” he says, fingers still hooked against her nightdress.

He looks imploringly at her, “Liv, don’t let me go back there. I can’t go there again. They’ve seen my face.”

“I won’t let you, I’ll keep you safe,” she promises.

 

* * *

 

Lessons in blood magic aren’t something one can borrow from a library. At least not any that she’s browsed. She’s thinking of the words to broach that question at the front desk.

_ Hello, I’m looking for books on spellwork. _

Yes, but how to ask that without getting escorted out?

It is San Francisco at least, not somewhere in the Deep South. So, Olivia looks it up in the phone book and finds a shop down in the bay. 

The women working inside have hair like cobwebs and raccoon eyes. The shop smells strongly of incense and the floors creak when Olivia walks. Tarot cards, crystals, candles, no actual books on magic. She bites the inside of her cheek.

“Do you have any reading material?” she asks.

She ends up buying a few zines from behind the counter. They have charms for newborn babies drawn painstakingly in black and white for the xerox machine. She finds a spell for safe travels, another for a safe home. No location spells.

No, for that, Olivia has to call her mother.

Mary hums deep in her chest when Olivia asks her. She sounds close and far away over the phone. Olivia closes her eyes and pretends, just for a moment, that she’s little again and curled up on her mother’s lap.

“What’s the spell for?” Mary asks.

“For finding me… if I ever get lost and fly away,” Olivia doesn’t lie.

“Oh, Sweetheart. Have you been getting lost? I keep telling you, you need a string to tie around the finger of that wandering mind of yours,” Mary tuts.

“I know, Mama, I have a ball of yarn in this labyrinth with me,” Olivia whispers, feeling chided.

“You’re so much like Russell. He was a dreamer too. Could never get his head out of a book or the clouds. Sometimes I wonder if that’s why he--hm, I’ll find that spell.”

Olivia listens to the turning of pages, “This book has been in our family for generations. One day you’ll give it to your daughters,” Mary says.

“I’m not having children, Mom,” Olivia says.

Mary hums, “Well, you never know for sure.”

“ _ Mom. _ ”

“Here it is, location spell. Do you have a pen, Sweetie?”

The compass isn’t new. They don’t make them like they used to and the spell might not work if it isn’t built right. She opens it out, popping off the face to reveal the guts. Compasses and humans have such different anatomy.

She watches the needle change colour with tempering, the heat turning silver gold, then black. She sucks in a breath. Just a little prick.

The blood beads, then rolls down her finger. She drops, one, two, three drops. They travel in a stream towards the magnetic needle, binding to it, staining it a dark red. She tests it. Second star to the right, then straight home until morning.

“What’s the occasion?” Hugh looks genuinely confused. Summer. Not fall or winter. No anniversaries, birthdays, or holidays. 

“It’s a just because kind of gift,” she says. 

He unwraps it meticulously along the creases, using his exacto knife to get the tape. 

The box is just the right shape for a ring, Olivia realizes too late. Hugh’s face lights up, then falls slightly when he opens it. 

“Is this some hint that I’ve failed to get?” he asks. 

Liv hum-laughs and pushes her hair behind her ears, “Ah, no. It’s a compass. But it’s a special one. Hold it in your hand.”

Hugh does so and frowns while waiting for the needle to settle on North. 

“Honey, I think you might have been duped,” he says slowly. 

Olivia walks around the room, trying to contain her grin. Hugh watches the needle follow her and she sees his face journey from bemused to understanding. 

“It points towards you,” he says. 

“It points towards me.”

“How are you doing that? The magnetic poles….”

“It’s a trick Janet taught me. In case you ever get lost down a dark path again,” she covers the compass with her hand and kisses him. 

“Hon, you’d better have a damn good sense of direction, because you’ll be leading us through the dark like this,” Hugh laughs.

“I don’t need a good sense of direction,” she grabs his hand, “This right here is home.”

 

* * *

The house smells like burnt pumpkin. Olivia's in a big witches hat and bigger grin. Hugh's nervous, flighty as he keeps checking the windows. His own hook handed killer costume is a lot less well-received. Parents who see him lurking in the window avoid their house.

"Honey, the candles are burning low, can you get some more from the garage?" he asks.

Frowning, but not questioning it, Olivia grabs some emergency candles from the garage. Tools are starting to accumulate there, almost time to move. Too many material possessions. Too many roots. Too much trace for beetles to feed on.

Hugh's on the floor when she gets back to the living room and it takes her a good thirty seconds to put together Hugh plus ring, plus kneeling. 

“Liv, could you see us getting married?” he asks.

She’s looking at it like he’s just shown her a large spider instead of a promise of forever. Hugh sees her expression before she can school it. 

He closes the box, “It’s okay.”

He doesn’t sound okay. 

“Hugh, it’s,” she doesn’t want to say complicated, but it is, “Please give me some time.”

He leaves for a walk. Still wearing that damn hook hand. He's going to get himself arrested.

"Hugh!" she tries to follow, but is blocked by a swarm of children.

One hour goes by. She paces. Two hours. The jack o'lanterns burn lower, just a warm wash of light on the front walk. Three hours. She turns off the porch light and gets ready for bed.

Hugh's cold and drunk when he returns. He finds her in bed, curled up with a book and presses his head into her shoulder.

He doesn't bring it up to. Pride wounded. He undresses, skipping a shower and pajamas, then sleeps with his back to her. Olivia sighs, sets her book down, turns the light off, and spoons him.

He snuffles, then links their fingers.

In her dreams, she watches Hugh build an addition onto her cottage. It starts with another box, then a hall to connect the two. He avoids the rose bushes and the red roof, never disrupting her space, but building around it. Making it a home for them. A home that could hold a few kids. You know. Just in case. 

* * *

 

 

The thing about wedding rings is that they’re a requirement for cohabitation in many parts of the country. They learn this with the first motel they try in Georgia. 

“You need to get yourselves right in the eyes of the lord. We do not serve sin here,” the manager says. 

“Seems like a bad business practice,” Olivia says, feet up on the dash and drinking straw to her mouth. 

Hugh’s picking at his hands, mouth in that displeased line.

“You know, for a second, I thought that they saw something else in us. Not just the ring thing,” he chuckles, muscle tick-tick-ticking in his jaw.

“Saw what?” Olivia challenges, sitting up straighter.

“Just… you know… it’s nothing,” Hugh starts the car.

Olivia sighs, grabbing the cup she’s been levitating in front of her.

They drive around the suburbs of Atlanta until they find a grubby looking pawn shop.  _ These were someone else’s precious things _ , Olivia thinks, running her fingers over the glass. She wonders what secrets they could hold. Wishes she could see with a touch. Instead, she closes her eyes and follows the patches of colour, tapping her finger against the spot.

“This one,” she says.

The guy behind the counter has coke bottle glasses and a thinning hairline. He juggles the keys, then takes the tray of rings out. Olivia closes her eyes again, chasing the pale blue with her ring finger, stroking the ring it lands on.

“And this one.”

She can’t read their pasts, but she can read their hearts. The Claddagh ring that fits Hugh perfectly seems to sing with joy. Her own ring has an opal set in middle. Milky white, but covered with colours like an oil slick. She laugh-hums at the coincidence. It’s like her own closed eyes.

“Glad it’s in gold, can’t wear silver. Never could, makes my skin itch and burn,” Hugh says.

Olivia hums in agreement. They both avoid the crucifix staring down at them from the pawn shop’s wall.

The shopkeeper doesn’t bother with niceties. The bell just rings as they leave.

They get a motel no problem. One room, one bed, and a newspaper to look for work in. She draws red circles around the numbers they’ll have to call in the morning. Hugh’s in the kitchen making noodles and sauce.

The ring feels heavy and awkward, like a promise. Like a binding contract. It keeps catching the dim motel light.

Olivia listens for the ticking of the green beetle. She listens so long and so hard that Hugh has to sit in her line of vision to get her attention.

“Liv! Dinner’s ready,” he says.

“Sorry, Honey,” she kisses him.

He keeps looking at her ring and smiling like a schoolboy. Olivia reaches across the table to wipe some sauce off his chin. He leans into her touch, looking at her from beneath his lashes. Her handsome boy.

It hurts sometimes. Loving him is like a stabbing pain in the chest.

_ I don’t deserve you, not for all the ways I’ve hurt you _ , she thinks.

“The tub here isn’t great, but maybe we can have a shower after dinner,” he suggests, eyes darting to her cleavage.

Hugh’s always been a gentle and considerate lover. He’s patient, listening for the right noises, searching for spots that even she hasn’t found. 

He’s rough tonight. Rougher than he’s ever been, but still sweet. Olivia’s surprised by how much she likes it and responds in turn, biting at his ears and leaving red marks down his back.

He’s mouthing something against the love bites he’s left on her neck. She tries to make it out, despite getting distracted by the maddening pace his hand has between her legs.

It clicks in her brain just before the orgasm hits.

“Mrs. Crain,” he’s panting into her. Marking her. Claiming her. Tying her down with his weight.

The little pleased chuckles he makes as he stares down at her thoroughly fucked expression is lovely. He’s so lovely. So much lovelier than the ticking of a beetle that keeps her awake all night.


	5. The Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No protective charm or impossible bond can keep that beetle out, so Olivia has to break a curse with her bare hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Holidays everyone. Here we are at the ending of this cross country tour of two nerds in love.
> 
> Thank you to all who took this journey with me. 
> 
> For anyone who's curious. I picture Olivia's father as Paul Ready, her mother as Janeane Garofalo, and Alse as Rachel Weisz. 
> 
> Hugh Crain has two moms, it is law now. #GayAgenda.

They don’t last long in Georgia. Olivia almost bites through her lip with the effort it takes to hold back some choice words to their employer. Being pretty and wearing dresses are two thirds of the expectations she has to live up to, but not speaking her mind is where she draws the fucking line. Some of the women they work with remark that they never see Mr. and Mrs. Crain on Sunday. Are they Baptist or Methodist? Hugh and Olivia avoid the question. They’ve read the bible. Taken out the good parts. But it’ll be judgment day before they set foot inside a church. Hugh instinctively crosses the street at the sight of a cross, Olivia grips his hand and follows.  

But their feet are tired and the map Olivia keeps is covered in stickers. Happy faces for no migraines, stars for perfect places, little coloured squares for ‘do not revisit’. Three years, fifteen states. Their trip across the country is a crooked line.

“I just want somewhere to clear my head,” she says to Hugh in the parking lot of a Waffle House.

“And I want something challenging,” he says.

They play roulette with the map. Hugh’s finger lands first, dead centre on a capital.

“The stars at night, the sure shine bright,” Olivia says.

“Yeehaw,” Hugh says with no enthusiasm.

Austin, Texas.

It takes two days for Olivia to get hired on contract to draft up blueprints for a theatre. Hugh has his pick of the litter between commercial and residential work on the expanding waterfront, he still chooses the project closest to her office. 

The house they rent is the penthouse of an old repurposed hotel from the 1920s. There’s room for a rooftop garden and woodworking space for Hugh.

Olivia charms the house, and the truck, and steals Hugh’s ring to put a protective spell on that too. 

It’s perfect. Too perfect.

The migraines dry up. Olivia sleeps through the night. No ticking. No nightmares. They go to bed, hands held, and she wakes up rested in the morning. No sleepwalking. No nightmares.

She can walk to work and has interesting coworkers to drink coffee with. It’s normal. Austin’s weird, but it’s their kind of weird. It’s safe, so they rest their feet and their minds.

And, Hugh builds a whole villa around her cabin, careful to avoid the roses, careful to avoid the stone walkway, but with a red door always open for her to visit.

There’s so many rooms. A green room, a yellow room, and a blue room with teddy bears and children's books. 

“You’ve been busy,” she finds him putting up a chandelier.

He looks embarrassed, but shrugs, “You know what they say about idle hands.”

“They’re the devil’s workshop,” Olivia says.

 

* * *

 

Austin keeps them until it doesn’t. New England calls to them on with the long distance ringing of a phone.

Sophia, Hugh’s sister, has a friend who has a friend who has a job for Hugh and by extension Olivia.

It’s really good money. The kind of money to uproot a life over.

“We don’t have to take it,” Hugh says, leaning against the kitchen sink with wet and red hands.

“It would be foolish not to,” Olivia sighs.

“We earn enough here. We have a life. We’re saving up for the house,” he says.

The dream house. A two person cottage on the seaside. Ideally, they can escape the world and become lighthouse keepers, but the forward march of technology mars that future with uncertainty.

The future is never certain. She learned that the day her father died. They had plans. Disneyland, Paris, The Grand Canyon. Plans never lived out, because the future is never a fixed point, just a bunch of parallel lines heading forward forever.

So, they sell what they don’t need and pack up for New Haven, New York.

She’s nervous meeting the woman who raised Hugh. Sophia Crain looks like a Victorian matron. Dignified, stiff, and somewhat haunted. Her salt and pepper hair is piled on top of her head in a bun. Her partner, Eleanor, is a rosy cheeked factory worker who greets Olivia with a gripping of wrists.

They're warm and understanding, and it's funny to see all the pieces of Hugh click into place. He is a product of his upbringing. Raised by these two women to be the kindest man she's ever known. The kind women who give her and Hugh work and hospitality without expectation of much in return. Just a Sunday dinner every week.

On the walk home Hugh says, "They won't stop asking when I'm gonna make an honest woman of you."

Olivia snorts at that, "Then they know too much and too little. You'd keep me settled, Mr. Crain, but there's nothing out there that could make an honest and tame woman out of me."

"Don't I know it, Ms. Sanderson," Hugh says with the taste of grapefruit and honey on his tongue.

He pauses, hands in pockets, to look at the moon--waxing gibbous, and lights a cigarette.

"Janet told me about the curse," he says.

It makes Olivia stop dead in her tracks.

"I understand your hesitance, Liv, but no curse is gonna kill me," Hugh grabs her hand.

She turns to look at him, a shadowy figure with glowing eyes.

"You don't know that," she says.

"I do, because you wished for me, and I wished for you too. And, no curse can hurt your impossible husband, who just happens to be the son of the devil."

That hits Olivia in the chest and she releases a surprised chuckle, "Hugh, you aren't the devil's son. That's ridiculous."

"No more ridiculous than a husband killing curse," he fires back.

He's got her there.

"Give me one more year then," she says after a good long minute.

Hugh kisses her ring finger, "You're gonna have to keep that promise."

* * *

 

 

It starts as a cough. Just a little rattle. It’s been so long that she’s worried for anything that she thinks of horses instead of zebras. Just a common cold. He’s been working in the rain, Ted from his job site has small kids with sick germs. She’ll bring him soup for lunch and start dosing on the vitamin C herself.

Hugh winces and pats his ribs, “Ugh, it feels like something’s crawling around in my chest.”

That’s when she hears it.  _ Ticktickticktick _ . Adrenaline courses through her and she’s dressing without rhyme or reason.

“Liv?” Hugh looks up at her with dark circles under his eyes. Blood bubbles between his teeth.

She tucks her nightgown into pants and those pants into boots.

“Hugh, get in the truck,” she leaves no room to argue.

“Honey, I’m fine,” he says before a coughing fit.

She gets him to the ER just in time for him to collapse. 

Olivia’s shock has her hushing the hysterical woman in the room, completely oblivious to it being her own screams. 

Hugh’s hauled onto a gurney and she’s left standing in the hall. A nurse taps her on the arm with a pen and hands her a clipboard. 

She’s half way through filling out her own insurance information when she realizes that Hugh's insurance is separate from hers. Different jobs. Different surnames. Different coverage.

“Excuse me, could I have a new form?” she asks. 

Then she’s sitting there digging through Hugh’s wallet for his insurance card. It’s full of sentimental treasures: the ticket stubs from their second date, a strip of photobooth pictures, and lastly, their fake wedding rings. Hers disappeared from the little envelope she kept it in, here she had thought she lost it.

Fat tears make their way down her cheeks. Little pieces of him. Little pieces of their life together. Something so fragile and perfect. Something she took for granted. 

It didn’t matter. Married or not. The curse came for him. That’s what curses do. Her perfect impossible Hugh now hangs between life and death. Surgeons scalpels looking for an invisible illness. A ruptured blood vessel or lung. They won’t find the source. The source has merged with the soul of Salem, Massachusetts.

Sophia and Eleanor arrive not too long after. They avoid explaining their relationship, just sit with Olivia in the waiting room.

“I’m so sorry,” Olivia whispers. 

“Hush now, he is much stronger than a little bug,” Sophia says. 

Olivia tenses. 

Just a little bug. 

“I’ve always been telling him to be careful in those wet, dirty places he works in. Who knows what kind of critters live there?” Sophia brushes some lint out of Olivia’s hair. 

Olivia laugh-hums, but her smile is fake.

“I’m sure he’ll be okay, Olivia.”

She really has no idea. No clue that her brother’s dying right now and it’s Olivia’s fault,

It’s never going to stop if she keeps running. That ghost is always a few steps behind, just peering over her shoulder. It won’t go to bed until she faces it.

“I have to go,” she says, voice quavering.

“Is everything alright? We can go back to the house if you need something,” Eleanor says.

“No. Yes. No, I need to go to my mother’s house,” Olivia says.

The look Sophia gives her is incredulous. Olivia shakes her head, “I know it sounds crazy, but he’s really sick and my mother has the cure.”

It shows how far she’s come that it only takes a minute to get a slow nod of approval.

“And if he wakes while you’re gone?” Sophia asks.

“Tell him to find me at the cottage,” Olivia gets up.

Eleanor and Sophia hug her goodbye.

 

* * *

 

The state of Massachusetts is notorious for its existence outside of a sane reality. Few scholars claim answers to the cause of its bending planes and black waters, but all can agree in the shared sense of unease. It's the kind of place where sounds breaking open the sky in the middle of the night is not uncommon. Somewhere things crawl out of the ocean and into the beds of locals. A location just as likely to sink back into the sea as it is to crack open and reveal it's build on a foundation of old gods. Lovecraft country.

The historic town of Salem feels no more or less eerie than the skeletal trees or long stretches of highway that connect New England like veins. It does, unlike most of the places Olivia has lived in her short life, feel like a homecoming.

Olivia Sanderson arrives in the dead of night. Late enough for all of the sidewalks to be rolled up and the storefronts shuttered. 

Her mother’s house is still in one piece. She pauses outside. The foundation looks like it’s sinking on the right. She and Hugh should—

Hugh. She doesn’t have time to stall. 

The lights snap on inside and the door opens. 

“Livvy? What’s wrong sweetheart?” Mary Sanderson stands in her open door. 

Olivia puts on her most convincing brave face. 

“It’s inside him?” Mary slams the teapot down hard, making both of her daughters jump. 

Janet goes back to scratching the cats ears and staring at the fire. 

“It’s crawling around in his lungs, but they can’t see it in the x-rays,” she says. 

“Could just be cancer,” Janet says. 

“It’s not! I heard it. I hear it when he coughs. That little ‘tick-tick-tick’.”

Mary purses her lips and folds her arms. What a sight they are. Sanderson women, all looking like spectres in their white nightgowns and mussed hair. 

“Some curses can be broken personally. A true love’s kiss is the most common-”

“Yeah, tried that one a few dozen times,” Olivia says.

Janet snorts.

“This curse needs a stronger magic. I’m not sure what, my best suggestion is going to the source,” Mary says. 

Olivia rubs her eyes, “So do I need a shovel or…?”

“Well, you know, Granny Young escaped her noose and fled to one of the islands in the bay,” Mary says. 

“So, a boat and a shovel,” Janet supplies. 

Olivia laughs into her tea. 

“I can’t protect you out there, Pumpkin. Are you sure you’re up for it?” Mary asks. 

Olivia holds a hand out to her mother, “Take a look.”

Because Mary can see both with her eyes and with her hands. Flashes of what life was, what life is, and what will be. She is past, present, and future. 

Mary strokes Olivia’s knuckles, inhaling deeply, and looks over her shoulder. 

“Oh, Sweetheart, they’re beautiful,” she sighs. 

Olivia doesn’t have to look to know what her mother sees. She feels the phantom faces of one-two-three-four-five children behind her. The branches of their family tree growing out until judgment day. 

“Your father’s old boat is in the garage. Take your sister,” Mary says. 

“I dunno, this seems like one of those ‘go it alone’ things,” Olivia says.

“Yeah, make her row alone,” Janet says.

Mary shoots her daughters a look that still makes the hair on their arms stand up, “There is no such thing as going alone in this house and that’s final.”

“Yes Momma,” they say.

 

* * *

 

She can travel the country by dusty road, but the Atlantic Ocean will always call her back. Its icy hands pull at the boat they back into the harbour. The ocean is her beginning, and it might just be her end.

Dad was going to teach them to sail. She remembers him in fragments now, the curl of his hair, and that song he'd always whistle. The words and directions he gave her are nothing but feelings now. Just the story is left behind.

“I’m thirty,” she announces in awe. 

“Yeah?” Janet looks up from the boat stuff she’s doing. 

“It’s not what I expected,” Olivia says evenly.

“What did you expect?” Janet asks.

Olivia considers it for a long minute, then shrugs.

"Spinster living next door to a library? A witch in a cottage on the edge of town, with a yard children dare each other to intrude on. Not journeying out to sea to rescue my impossible husband," she offers.

"This is about what I expected for you, actually," Janet says.

Janet, as it would turn out, does know how to sail. Olivia was expecting taking a rowboat out into the choppy Atlantic waters, but upon their arrival at the harbour, she can understand her mother’s insistence at taking something larger.

The ocean, unlike a skittish horse, cannot be tamed. It is the source of all life, but also uncaring. It would smash Olivia against the rocks with the same breath it would use to guide baby whales to safety. The sacred mother who would smother its child in the crib. It’s not out of malice. It’s a god. It gives and it takes. The who is arbitrary.

“Do we have any idea where we’re going?” Olivia realizes.

“I did the blood trick with the astrolabe,” Janet says, "I assume that blood and curses are both bound to us, so, since it isn't pointing us back towards shore and home to Mom, it must be leading us to the source."

“You _d_ __id the blood trick with the astro_ \-- _ what the fuck, Janet?” Olivia turns to her sister.

Janet is still in control of the boat and ignoring Olivia’s incredulity, “Well, since you’ve been content to go into every situation blind, one of us had to have a plan.”

There’s not much use arguing about it, because an encroaching marine fog consumes their boat in a way that is not fully natural.

Through the fog appears an island, jutting out of the sea like a black knife.

“Do you think that’s it?” Janet asks.

Olivia swallows hard, “Yup.”

The boat rocks, not unlike a cradle, on its way to shore. It makes her understand the concept of sea legs, feeling like she’s going to topple over the side. Perhaps it’s her need to touch the hot stove, to see for herself, that has her leaning against the railing, looking down at the black water below. It’s what has her seeing the lights. The warm lights of an open house.

_ “It sank into the sea, _ ” Olivia whispers.

“What?”

“The house. It’s underwater,” she says.

“Holy shit,” Janet looks down with her.

Below the water, a door opens.

“Olivia, do not,” Janet grabs her sister’s arm.

“This is not my brightest idea,” Olivia’s already climbing over the railing.

“Oh my god. Get back here,” Janet yanks Olivia backwards.

“It’ll be okay, I know… well, I have a feeling that I need to take a leap of faith on this,” Olivia says.

Summoned either by their thoughts or some other force, a ladder breaks the surface of the water, emerging with enough rungs to lead Olivia down, down, down.

Janet purses her lips, curses a few times, then goes to anchor the ship.

“If you’re not back in half an hour, I’m calling the coast guard,” Janet says.

“I’ll see you then,” Olivia says.

They hug, embracing for what could be the last time.

“I love you,” Janet mumbles into her sister’s shoulder.

“Love you too.”

Now to climb. The abyss meets Olivia half way, helping to drag her, dress and all, to the bottom of the sea. She is not want for air, nor the sky above. She does one rung after the other until her foot hits solid wood. Reaching the front porch rights the world. She is up and down, then she is sideways, falling onto her ass in front of the door. 

Red door. And from inside she hears singing. 

_ I should have filled my ears with cotton and wax,  _ she thinks. She thinks of sweet voices and the corpses of ships and men alike split open on rocks. 

The floor creaks under each step she takes. The singing stops. 

Dark hair, white nightgown, must be a Sanderson woman. Or, they’re all Young women, she supposes. You can change your name, pass hands from man to man, but the curse will still find you. 

Alse Young lures Olivia into the kitchen where she sits, drinking tea. 

“Hello, Darling,” she says. 

It is the most bizarre sensation to face an almost doppelgänger. Alse’s a little taller, face a little harder, but so clearly Olivia’s ancestor. 

Olivia, usually so verbose and chatty, finds herself speechless in this moment. 

“Tea?” Alse offers. 

Olivia sits down. 

“I have somewhere to be. Promises to keep,” she starts. 

“I won’t keep you long. You’re the first in many generations, you know,” Alse brushes some hair away from Olivia’s face. 

“My husband is dying from your curse,” Olivia says. 

“Your husband? Is he now? I thought you denied him marriage. He can’t die of the curse if he isn’t yours. Except, he shares your bed, and wears your ring. Or am I wrong, Mrs. Crain?” Alse pours the tea. 

Olivia regards her in sullen silence. 

“You know, I regretted the curse,” Alse says, “Even in my own lifetime. The beetle was supposed to hunt him and his kin, but his kin was my kin by then. That’s the thing with curses, the price is always worse on the caster.”

“Should have read the fine print,” Olivia rasps. 

Alse laugh-hums, “Guess so. Hang on,” she leaves the room. 

Olivia isn’t sure if she should follow or run. In her thinking she is too late to leave. Instead she stays seated and warily watches the box placed in front of her. 

“Is he worth the cost?” Alse asks, keeping the box closed with one hand. 

“I don’t know the cost,” Olivia says. 

“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life.”

“Whose life?” Olivia asks. 

“That’s not up for you to decide,” Alse stares her down with their shared hazel eyes. 

Seconds tick by like hours with Olivia chewing the inside of her lip.

Watch Hugh die or damn someone else to the same fate? To play the role of roulette. Delivering a fatal blow meant for Hugh. How would it look, to come all this way, then turn back? Would it be cowardice? Or would Janet nod in understanding?

“Not such an easy decision,” Alse stands in front of the fire.

In her heart, Olivia feels Hugh’s pulse and breath getting fainter. His exhales come out in dusty wheezes, lungs held captive by the beetle.

Olivia closes her eyes when she nods, seeing that image painted there from the first night. Hugh standing with their five babies in that little cottage in the woods. It’s selfish of her. To want them more. It’s a selfish giddiness, thinking of reading a story book with the twins sharing her lap. The girl with the camera sits to her right, sharing the couch cushions, while the tall boy leans against the arm, listening but still standing. The girl with the bucket hat is on the floor, back pressed against one of Olivia’s legs. 

“Yes,” falls out of her mouth.

When she opens her eyes, she sees Alse differently. The woman is a ghost, all whites and blacks. She pushes the box into Olivia’s hands.

“Go,” she says.

Olivia breaches the water with a gasp. Janet’s still leaning over the side, forehead notched in worry.

Once back on the boat and wrapped with a towel, Olivia opens the box. The fog is clearing away now that they’ve turned around and it’s even a little sunny. Sunny enough for the light to glint off the wedding ring Olivia plucks from the box. The box has one other occupant. A black beetle, still as if dead.

The price of magic dangles like an ax over Olivia’s neck. She returns to the world of the living, soaked to the bone and gasping. The wind carries her and Janet to shore, following whatever bidding it’s given. She rushes home. To Mother. To be sure. 

Mary greets them with confused concern, stroking her daughters by the hands and hair. 

“Did you find what you we’re looking for, Darling?”

Olivia nods. 

“Then what are you waiting for?!” Janet shoves at her. 

“But—“

“Go save Hugh,” Janet’s off getting Olivia’s things in order. 

“Don’t look back,” her mother kisses her cheek. 

 

* * *

 

Hugh looks too small for his bed. Shrunken and grey as if the life’s been wrung from him. Sophia stands at the sight of Olivia, eyes wide.

Olivia nods, feeling a little mad as she strides over to Hugh. Her impossible husband, still like a fairy tale princess waiting for true love’s kiss. Olivia delivers it, a press of the lips to his forehead. He’s still warm and soft. His heart beats strong.

Her fingers catch on the latch of the box a few times. Eleanor stands, ready to help.

“I’ve got it,” Olivia says, aware that she looks disheveled and worn herself.

Sophia makes a noise as she sees the black beetle.

“Olivia, what are you doing?” she asks.

“Fixing him,” Olivia asserts.

The beetle comes to life, moving its legs like little clock hands. It makes a clicking hum. There’s a moment of quiet before a ticking responds. The black beetle flies from the box to land on Hugh’s chest.

Eleanor grabs a newspaper and rolls it into a bat.

“No!” Olivia holds out a hand.

Eleanor looks to Sophia for permission.

“Honey, let’s give them some privacy,” Sophia says after a long minute.

Eleanor gapes, but obeys. 

The black beetle is humming, walking back and forth on Hugh’s chest. Olivia ignores the rest of the world, collapsing into the chair next to the bed.

The ticking gets louder, like the chime of a bell.

Then Hugh begins to cough. His whole body racks with the effort and Olivia stands to aid him. The beetle flies out into the mouthpiece of his mask. Jewel green stained with Hugh’s blood and saliva. Olivia hurries to remove the mask.

The green beetle flies around the room before settling on Hugh’s chest next to the black beetle. 

They move their wings before the green beetle starts to mount the black one. Olivia makes a disgusted noise, shooing them. They leave through the window. Like regular insects instead of curses.

Hugh’s face relaxes. His lashes fan against his cheeks and his brow furrows. He groans and smacks his lips.

Olivia stays completely still, not wanting to jinx his recovery.

Those blue eyes are bleary when they open. Olivia burst into something between laughter and tears.

“Liv?” Hugh’s voice is like sandpaper.

She nods and moves to grab his hand, pressing it to her forehead then kissing it.

“I was having the strangest dream,” he says.

Olivia keeps nodding as she digs into her pocket for the second box. She gets down on one knee because Hugh is a proper man who deserves a proper proposal.

“Marry me, Hugh,” she says.

Hugh looks at her with disbelief, “Damn Liv, if getting myself hospitalized would get you to pop the question, I’d have knocked on death’s door sooner.”

Her face contorts trying to laugh through her relief and grief.

“Yes, by the way, I will marry you. I’ll be your Mr. Sanderson,” he says.

Olivia slips her great-great-great-great grandfather’s simple band on Hugh’s finger. He pushes his mask off so he can kiss her properly.

It still takes them another year and a half to get married. To find a spot worthy of a Crain wedding. Somewhere that’s equal parts blessed and cursed. It's a beautiful old barn house, like their first date. Somewhere holy, but without the shadow of a cross. Friends come. From Colorado, Nevada, Utah, New York, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, and even a few make it out from Europe and Iran. Olivia and Hugh Crain have their first date under a late summer moon, grass dew-wet beneath their bare feet. All around them are the buzzes and creaks of bugs. And, not for a second does Olivia think she hears that  _tick-tick-tick._

She doesn't think about it as she hugs her mother goodbye for her honeymoon. The price of her happiness escapes her until she gets a call from her sister at the hotel.

Mary Sanderson dies at sixty-four of a broken heart. Olivia sees her mother, standing waist deep in the ocean, white dress scattered around her, lined up like so many women, white like dominoes. Lined up from the beginning, and Olivia at the end of it.

"You okay, Liv?" Hugh asks her, ring glinting in the moonlight.

She nods with a face full of tears.

"It ends with me," she whispers into the wind.

And Olivia doesn't fear that curse anymore. And, Hugh gives her beautiful, impossible children. Children with blue eyes that glow in the dark. Children with teeth that grow a little too quickly. Children who instinctively learn to avoid the sign of the cross and the house of an unwelcome God.

Olivia watches her children talk to people who aren't there, and she watches Shirley whisper prophecies in her sleep. She watches Theo shy away from the same places that give Olivia the worst migraines. She soothes Luke through the stomach bug that Nellie catches. 

And, all while looking for their perfect house. A castle maze built around a cottage with a red door.

And, when they find it, Olivia sleeps through the  _tick-tick-tick_ that awakens Shirley from a dead sleep.

And, she tells her children that any curse can be broken with true love.

And, the price of breaking that curse finds its way inside their forever house.

And, Olivia loses herself in that maze. No compass to guide her. Hugh, with the compass that only points towards the center of his universe, finds her too late.

Olivia Crain dies of a broken head at the age of forty-six. Found with a ticking beetle and her thoughts spread all around her in grey and red. 

Hugh Crain lives to be the oldest Young husband, dying at seventy-two of a broken heart. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this story made you feel anything, please share your thoughts with me. I share my writing because I wanna hear what you think of it. Cheers.


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